


even the mightiest heart needs a place to come undone

by 152glasslippers



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, POV Multiple, Post-Season/Series 01, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 20:11:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13325619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/152glasslippers/pseuds/152glasslippers
Summary: Karen was quiet, unnaturally so, which told him he should probably be worried about whatever was going to come out of her mouth next. He tried to busy himself by taking another drink of his beer.“Maybe you should stay here tonight.”He almost spit it out all over their dinner.Post-season 1. Frank’s having trouble sleeping. Karen offers a solution. Hint: it’s bed sharing. Multiple POV.





	even the mightiest heart needs a place to come undone

**Author's Note:**

> When you’re sick for two weeks after Christmas, your brain has plenty of time to figure out ways to get Karen and Frank into bed together. And then make it as extra as possible.

Karen opened the door with a small “hey” and a soft smile he couldn’t help returning.

“Hey.”

She locked the door behind him and he followed her into her apartment, into the kitchen, setting his bags down on the island. She went to the fridge and pulled out two beers, opening them and handing him one without asking.

“Thanks for bringing dinner.”

“Thanks for this.” He tilted his beer toward her, but he meant more than just the drink. This, the two of them. This, letting him into her apartment, her life. This, wanting him around. “How was your day?”

She took a deep breath. “Tedious. Spent the whole day in the archives. You?”

“Not bad.”

He watched her navigate the small space, listened to the sound of her bare feet on the kitchen tile, the movements so familiar to him now. It was just over two weeks since he’d last seen her, long enough for him to realize that he missed her.

Once Frank Castle was officially dead, and Pete Castiglione a free man, it had taken him a few weeks to reach out to her. Since then, they’d seen each other once almost every week, sometimes twice. They’d meet for coffee or breakfast at whatever new diner he found, or he’d walk her home from work. Most often, though, they were here, in her apartment, away from a world that might recognize him and one he was convinced would try to get at her. Making dinner or eating take out; side by side on her couch, talking through a movie or not even talking at all, while she typed away at an article and he read the next book Curtis had lent him or Leo had recommended.

He couldn’t even stomach the idea of staying away from her for six months now.

She turned back to him with a couple of plates and a handful of silverware, laying them on the counter next to the bags. She started taking out takeout containers, but she was watching him out of the corner of her eye, studying him.

“What is it, Karen?”

“You okay?”

“Mmm.” He nodded and took a drink of his beer, trying to play innocent.

Karen stopped, one arm half hidden in a takeout bag. “You look terrible, Frank.”

“Well shit, Karen, way to make a man feel special.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “You know what I mean.” But she said it with a smirk.

He huffed a laugh, then felt his face fall into a somber expression. He did know what she meant. And he couldn’t lie to her.

“Yeah, I uh…haven’t been sleeping.”

She kept unpacking their dinner, but her eyes were sharp on his.

“Nightmares?” she asked lightly, at odds with the look in her eyes.

He would never deserve the concern he found there.

“No, no.” The nightmares seemed to have stopped for the most part, only haunting him on particularly bad days, days of paranoia and suspicion, disbelief that he might actually be able to stop looking over his shoulder. “Too quiet. Silence in my head is a little too loud, you know?” He shifted his eyes away from her.

It was almost four months since the carousel, since he got his chance at a second life. And maybe it was just exhaustion—from putting his body through hell, from the fear of not having a war to fight, from trying to figure out how to live this new life—but he hadn’t had any problem sleeping. Until a few weeks ago, when he realized he was starting to feel settled, almost relaxed, and his brain had kicked back into high alert. And nothing would shut it off.

Karen was quiet, unnaturally so, which told him he should probably be worried about whatever was going to come out of her mouth next. He tried to busy himself by taking another drink of his beer.

“Maybe you should stay here tonight.”

He almost spit it out all over their dinner.

And there she was, just standing there, still pulling lids off of takeout containers like she’d made a comment about the weather, instead of suggesting they sleep together.

He knew she wasn’t offering him the couch.

“And what do you think would happen if I stayed here tonight?” he managed to ask.

She lifted her chin and leveled him with a look, crossing her arms and leaning back against the kitchen counter.

“I think you would sleep.”

“Yeah, I think that’s the last thing that would happen if I stayed here.”

He meant that he’d be too distracted, lying in a bed with her, to ever even close his eyes, but the second the words left his mouth, they both knew what it sounded like.

Her cheeks turned pink, and her eyes slid to the side, away from him. If he could have punched himself in the face, he would have.

But Karen never backed down from a fight. Not easily. And not with him.

“Which is the same thing that would happen if you didn’t stay.” Her eyes were back on his. “So what do you have to lose?”

His sanity. Or what was left of it, anyway.

The challenge in her eyes softened as she looked at him, as they regarded each other, and all that was left was caring. Too much caring.

Selfish bastard that he was, he wanted it. All of it. Her worry and her care, the chance to be with her. Safe, just the two of them. The chance to give it all back, to worry and care about her. Up close. In the dark.

It was pointless anymore to pretend he didn’t.

“You’re a tough woman to say no to, Ms. Page.”

“Hasn’t stopped you before.”

But it would tonight.

And they both knew it.

\---

Three hours later, Frank was following her into her bedroom, looking a little lost and a lot out of place in his jeans and army boots. Karen went straight for her dresser, digging out a pair of old sweatpants she thought might fit him, tossing them his way before things could get too awkward.

“Pick whatever side you want. I’m going to use the bathroom.”

He nodded once, not quite looking at her, and she left him alone for the confines of her bathroom, where she spent too long staring in the mirror, asking herself what the hell she thought she was doing. Lingering over what to do about her makeup, debating whether to sleep in her bra—before a voice in her head said _screw it_ and she took them both off, pulling on a pair of plaid pajama pants and an oversized Vermont College t-shirt, one of her few relics left from home.

When she walked back into the bedroom, Frank was underneath the blankets on the side of the bed closest to the door, with the best view into the rest of the apartment. His clothes were folded neatly on top of her dresser, his boots lined up next to it. She tried not to look surprised that he wasn’t wearing his shirt.

In a strange way, it made her feel better about leaving her bra in the bathroom.

He was lying on his back, and he didn’t move as she flipped the light off and crawled in next to him, everything silhouetted against the dark by the yellow light bleeding through her curtains from the street outside. She lay on her back, matching her body to his, and it was quiet—probably the exact quiet Frank was trying to avoid—until she heard him move next to her. When she glanced at him, he was on his side, facing her, his pillow tucked between his head and his arm. And then it was more than a glance, his eyes searching hers, still a little lost, the most vulnerable she’d seen him since that afternoon in the elevator.

She rolled over on to her side, her body lining up with his, a mirror image, her hands tucked between them on the bed.

“What now, Karen?” he asked, but it wasn’t mean. He was serious, that lost look translated into his voice.

She shrugged in the darkness.

“Tell me about the silence. Tell me about the book you’re reading or about how Curtis is doing. Tell me about David and Sarah and the kids. Ask me about the puff piece Ellison tried to pitch me this morning. Ask me to tell you a story.” She paused, barely enough room for a breath. “Ask me to touch you.”

They lay there, looking at each other, sharing the same space, the same bed, and she hoped he heard what she was really recommending: whatever would chase away the loneliness.

She knew the void a family left behind, and she’d bet her next three paychecks that’s where his silence really came from. Not from being left without a war to fight, with no one left to punish. That had all just been noise to cover up what he’d lost—the commotion that followed a family everywhere. The sound of a group of people laughing together, yelling, crying, fighting with each other. Loving each other, up close.

He hadn’t shifted away from her; she hadn’t scared him off. He seemed to be considering what she said.

“Sing something?” A hesitant request; a timid suggestion. And honestly the last thing she thought he’d ask.

She didn’t want to turn him down, reject him now that he’d finally asked for something, but—

“I can’t sing, Frank.”

“Sure you can.”

“Not well.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling, aware of Frank watching her. There was only one song she knew by heart, all the way through—a short one, from a long time ago. She hesitated, then sang quietly, her voice delicate in the darkness.

_come with me, my love_  
_to the sea_  
_the sea of love_  
_I want to tell you_  
_how much I love you_

She cringed inwardly at the words, a little too on the nose, her fingers flexing against the blankets where they rested on her stomach.

“Keep going,” Frank whispered.

_do you remember_  
_when we met?_  
_that’s the day I knew you were my pet_  
_I want to tell you_  
_how much I love you_

_come with me, my love_  
_to the sea_  
_the sea of love_  
_I want to tell you_  
_how much I love you_

He didn’t say anything when she finished singing, and for the first time, the silence between them felt unbearable, so she rushed to say without thinking, “My mom used to sing it to me and my brother when we went to sleep.”

“I didn’t know you have a brother.”

Karen swallowed and tried not to fidget.

“Had.”

Not how she imagined telling him, a late-night admission on the back of another confession she never intended to make after trying to sing him to sleep in her bed.

But Frank didn’t say anything. Just leaned further into his pillow, bring him infinitesimally closer to her.

“Would you sing it again?”

She looked over at him and met his eyes. She smiled, soft and small, before turning back and singing to the ceiling. She didn’t have it in her to sing the words to him directly.

Not yet.

**Author's Note:**

> The song in this fic, "Sea of Love," was originally released in 1959 by Phil Phillips (something her mother could have listened to growing up?) but Karen sings this version, a cover by Cat Power I imagine Karen becoming attached to as a teenager: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbMeAOTPJzM
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
